text: not known; manuscripts: not known, perhaps Singapore or
Malacca.

words:

69378 words, including 12 verses

references:

to the pages (1-319) and lines of the OUP edition.

Editorial notes

This is the Malay version of a tradition that begins with the
Sanskrit Sukasaptati, The Parrot's Seventy Tales.
Versions of this fine collection of popular tales were
transported from Sankrit into Persian, and it is from one of
these Persian adaptations that the Malay text was
translated. According to the Malay text, this translation
was done by a certain Kadi Hassan in 773 AH (1371 AD).

The text of Hikayat Bayan Budiman is
important for the history of Malay literature for a number of
reasons. Its date is very early indeed. We
have a manuscript fragment dating from the early 17th century,
also a very early date. And it seems to be the product of
a mercantile environment -- so, for instance, it ignores the
usages common in other Malay texts for referring to
royalty.

Later manuscripts do not retain the
archaic spellings of the Bodleian fragment, but they do
preserve some interesting linguistic features, in particular a
tendency to complex verbal morphology. Those interested
in this aspect of the text might peruse the
list of words found in this edition
of Hikayat Bayan Budiman.

Manuscripts of Hikayat Bayan Budiman
are plentiful. Winstedt has based his critical edition on
two principal manuscripts, L and R, described
above. He also relies on A described
below. In addition, he occasionally adduces variant
readings from certain other manuscripts. (These variants are
generally noted in the MCP
text.) The manuscripts Winstedt draws upon are:

• A. -- Van der Wall no.174,
Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Jakarta. Dated
1278 AH (1862 AD). Van Ronkel, Catalogus, no.70. This
text was taken as the principal source for Brandes' study, and
was also favoured by Winstedt. It shares the same
structure as R.

• Br. -- not identified by
Winstedt, but presumably from the publication by Brandes
mentioned under Bibliography below.

• Bod. -- MS Pococke 433,
Bodleian Library, Oxford University. A fragment of 14 pages,
formerly owned by Pococke, and collected in 1630-1640 or
earlier; contains part of stories 1-3, and has many
archaic features in spelling.